The Fledgling and the Hawk
by Kuro Guardian
Summary: He repaid ill with ill and uncaged a terror. From the Stories Not Told to Children Collection.


Once there was a fledging and the fledgling looking ever upward believed it was a falcon because it admired them greatly and coveted their plumage. Little did the fledgling realize that such a creature given a chance would eat it feathers and all. It no more realized that then it thought to look upon it's self in the water because it was young and arrogant qualities which seldom coincides with the virtue of reflection. And then the fledgling lived ignorant as anything and arrogant beyond all things until one day it came upon a clearing.

In this clearing laid a fort and in the center of that fort was a courtyard and in that courtyard stood an ivory tower. Ignorant of all things and arrogant beyond most thing the little bird flapped and fluttered to the courtyard where it watched a boy, a man, and an elder. The boy wore a glove upon which set a large raptor blind-folded and ties close. In his other hand he held a ball when he removed the blindfold he threw the ball which the raptor tried hard to catch. When it succeeded it was given nothing, but words - when it failed it was handled roughly though not enough to damage it.

The man was old enough to be mature, but young enough to be thoughtlessly cruel and he made nets when he didn't mend cages, made cages when he didn't weave nets, and all the time he was catching yet more birds for the cages he made. The fledging watched the man's hand, but could not catch the secret that made him able to do all these things in the same moment it seemed. Frustrated with the sleight-hand man she focused on the old one who it seemed did little until she noticed the piles of bones by his side and all the time they were growing until it would knock dust over them to begin new piles. Watching carefully the fledgling could not gain the trick of the bones so she decided to investigate the tower.

Though the fledgling flapped her wings until she though she'd flap them off she had no more reach the top the tower at the end then she had at the beginning. Tired and frustrated beyond all doubt she stopped to perch at a nearby window. Behind her wings stirred as a very, very annoyed voice spoke up, "Why are you here little annoyance? Shouldn't you be pecking up worms in the fields like all the other riff-raff?" She whipped around so quickly she nearly fell from the window. Heart beating like a hummingbird's wings. Right after she nearly died of fright her heart nearly bursts with anger.

"Who the hell are you to call me riff-raff, can't you see I'm a flacon?!" He - the voice in the darkness laughs bitterly. "Open your eyes if you can little fool, I'm blind-folded! Obviously you are not a falcon with such poor eyes." Stinging from such easy dismissal, but embraced for being so simple she remained silent until she could be almost civil. "Why are you blindfolded and " here she squinted in the dim light pretending she wasn't, "Why are you caged?" In the dark, little room the hawk stood as still and silent as stone. From where she stood with her poor fledgling eyes he looked just as strong as stone too. Sadly she could not see the cracks anymore then she could the fragility of rigid earth.

"Well? Or are you gone dull in your cage, tongue only good for a few quick licks after a fortnight of sharpening. Perhaps you were always empty-headed why else have you found yourself in a cage?" Now the fledging was young and ignorant, but still those were poor words to say. So badly did they sting the caged bird that he repaid ill with ill unleashing a deep, dark trouble he could not recage. "Fool', said he in a voice like the silence after a slap - comfortless and dreadful, "Fool - did not you see those men, know you not what you are?!" As always the fledgling puffed herself up to declare herself a falcon.

She had no time because in a voice more terrible then before the caged bird began to laugh. As the horrible laughter bounced round the room it soon seemed as though a room packed with people were choking desperately. "This land from this tower to the far river and the further wall belongs to those men as does everything living or upon and under that land." Though the sun still shone the fledgling shivered for it felt kike winter's very fingers wrapped tightly around her. She was born upon these lands and had never been far from them. "So what?', she said bravely, 'what has that to do with me?"

If birds could smile, this hawk would have been wearing a truly awful smirk. "You know nothing. You are like me, you will be caged falcon or not." It came again that laugh like a man choking slowly, painfully. "What power you might have will not save you anymore then your wings; all while that one", it carefully points a perfect wing, " will never see life from behind bars no matter how much safer she'd be." Straining again the fledgling sees a white bird quiet and graceful, but fir stumbling over it's feet. 'Above, a dove uncaged - free if the dovecote.' It stands almost underneath the feet of the men yet they take no more notice of her then they do the dirt at their feet.

Hearing the choking sound again she decides to face into the sunlight never mind unseen attacks. After all, he is in the cage not she. "I'll tell you the secret of it. Who the men below are and why. The boy is a trainer, he will always be a trainer and a master. The manner in which he raises his hawks is the manner in which he will rule his family. When he is older he will be the slight-of-hand man and his family will outnumber the numbers in his heart if any lurk within it. It is then he will trap, manipulate, and cage those like us and it will mean nothing to him. When he is yet older he'll become one of the devourers like the senile nesters who poison their broods before eating them. They are your master - masters because this their land." The hawk said more, so much more and as the sun fell to rise again it is possible he did not cease to speak, but she tuned him out. And below her the white dove mocked her with it's white, white body and it's feet pink from stumbling over them again and again. It's calm quivering eyes red from weeping, red like mother's; but she was a falcon and her eyes were perfect, a perfect black.

Even so if the hawk in the cage in the tower were right then she would be in a cage soon enough to fetch balls and be eatened, just bones in a pile beneath dust. Three days the fledgling sat perched upon the ivory tower with her back to the raving hawk - who squawked and gibbered and laughed like a man suffocating in his own bile. Three days in which she remembered the dead things before falcons and dreams of sky when mother wasn't a bloody mess of feathers in an eagle's claws. Mother with red eyes like a dove who spoke of Tengu and fire. Daemons and sunset. The West. "I'm going west." As soon as she said it she knew it was true - she was going west to become strong too strong for any cage.

"It won't work, at best you'll be a freak - a new kind of delicacy for the masters to enjoy. Maybe they'll breed you before they fee." She glares at her informer despite the fact he's blind. Her eyes have finally adjusted and she can see in the room and there is no cage only an eyeless bird tethered to a bird's stand. "I pity you. For I will be a freak - a youki, a demon. I am going to the West where the gates of power lie. If- when I come back I will kill you and the boy and the slight-of- hand man. Then I will eat the bone elder and become the master of these lands." The hawk speaks hesitantly breathless from held mirth. "And the dove?" "The dove is my sister and she shall have her own special cage so we'll be safe, she and I."

If the hawk had more questions it hadn't time to ask them before the fledgling was a dot in the sky.

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Well, that's it although I have one more thing to say... How is it I can have better then a hundred hits on this thing and no reviews? I'm not a review whore looking for tons of meaningless reviews, but I have to wonder at least a little bit. I mean is the work good, is it bad? What did it mean to you? I don't know and yet people seem to be reading it... Oh, well that's all.


End file.
